Potential Luck
by batfan7
Summary: After years of war, Harry is once again captured. A 'surprise' from one of the Death Eaters landed Harry among people who should be long dead, with a Tom Riddle who, rather than fight a war, chose to use a different route to power.
1. Chapter 1

Title: **Potential Luck**

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. At all.

A/N: There will be no romance in this story, and the rating is for violence (and maybe a bit of language) only. Thanks for reading!

**Chapter 1**

The floor rose up and smacked Harry on the cheek hard enough for his vision to momentarily darken, but not so hard that he worried about any broken bones. A loose tooth, perhaps, but nothing to be too concerned about.

Getting his hands beneath himself, he twisted back towards the man who'd sent the curse his way and spat, "_That_ was your big surpr-". He cut himself off mid-word to frown at the blurry room.

His tormentor was not where he'd been. And he could see the room.

Well, no, technically he couldn't really see much more than out-of-focus blobs of color, but there were definitely colors. Colors other than black. Certainly this was a surprise, considering he hadn't seen much more than grimy black walls for several weeks. Frowning, he surveyed as much of the room as he could see from his position on the floor. Grey walls (a pleasant change) were interrupted by several brown blobs he tentatively identified as a door, a desk, a bookshelf, and two rigid wooden chairs. A red mass that looked like it might turn out to be a comfy armchair sat in a corner complete with a large yellow accent pillow.

Not exactly the décor of a Death Eater prison cell.

It was also noticeably lacking the Death Eater.

What had happened? Avery's curse was obviously responsible for his new location, but…why?

With slow, cautious movements, Harry rose to his feet and took a step forward.

Nothing moved to stop him.

He spared a glance at the door, but couldn't imagine it would open for him. And even if it did, leaving bare-handed when the Death Eater had been stupid enough to send him to a room filled with potential weapons would be a mite short-sighted on his part. It seemed a rather foolish thing for Avery to have done, but Harry had no problem making it something the man fiercely regretted.

A growing feeling of grim determination mixed liberally with dark humor moved him towards the desk.

Squinting, Harry picked out the white rolls of parchment and a stubby quill on top of the desk. Snatching the quill up, he pressed a finger to the tip. It felt like it'd been recently trimmed, sharp and pointed. Ignoring the black smear of ink he's gotten on his finger, he snapped the feathery end off the quill keeping several inches of the hollow stem.

With quick, efficient movements, he riffled through the rest of the desk. Several more broken quills joined his first in a neat little pile. A smooth, glassy rock the size of his fist also joined his stash. It probably served some magical purpose, but Harry didn't have any way of determining what that might be and a muggle paperweight could be just as effective a bludger as an elaborately spelled device. The bottom left drawer was spelled shut and without a wand Harry couldn't open it so after a bit of tugging simply left it. More parchment, a package of spell-o-tape, a leather bound book, a small mirror, and an unopened box of lemon drops were the only other things he found. When he uncovered the candies, his heart gave a sharp lurch and he quickly dropped them back in the drawer. The Death Eaters liked to play their little games with him, but on this latest capture they had given him plenty of food, so the small treats were not tempting and the memories they invoked would have destroyed any hunger pains in any case.

Harry picked up the mirror and glanced over at the door. It had been perhaps three minutes since his arrival and he was beginning to wonder why there were no panicked voices shouting that he be found. Either Avery's spell must have teleported him to this location on purpose (which made him rather nervous) or he was much farther from his dark little cell than he thought.

Glancing back down at the mirror, Harry frowned at the surface. It was no longer reflective but had turned cloudy. Magic, obviously, but he had no desire to find out what it did. With a flick of wrist he tossed the mirror to the stone floor. As he'd hoped, it didn't have an unbreakable charm and shattered into a spray of glass, several of the smallest slivers embedding themselves in the scuffed toe of his sneaker. Grabbing one of the larger shards, he waved a hand at the rest of the mess and whispered a short spell. The smaller shards scattered around the room as if they'd been blown there by a sudden explosion of wind.

Wandless magic was not a talent that was generally thought to be very useful, but since Harry seemed to spend more time captured and wandless than free, he'd devoted a unusually large amount of time to stretching its usefulness. A person could do very simple charms with it such as _Lumos_, write on things at a distance, and levitate small, light objects, but that was about the extent that Harry had discovered. He had often wished that something like _Reducto_ or conjuration would have possible, but there wasn't much he to do to change the properties of magic. It appeared that wands were necessary to conduct more complicated or magically intense spells as they needed the focused precision a wand provided; willpower alone was not enough.

A soft murmur of voices whispered from beyond the door and Harry tensed, frozen for a moment, listening. They were quiet, un-hurried, calm voices, too soft to distinguish exact words. Harry felt his heart rate speed up as adrenaline rushed in. Snatching up the stack of quill ends, he tossed all but one to the floor to join the broken mirror. The single, sharp quill remaining he clenched in the hand not holding the jagged remains of the mirror.

The voices grew louder and Harry slid up against the wall next to the door and took another rapid glance around the room – the books would be too heavy to levitate, perhaps one of them would emit some violent attack if opened – but, no, he didn't have time to check. The smooth paperweight was in easy reach. Should he have checked the window? Maybe he should have concentrated on escape rather than attack? No. He dismissed those thoughts and drew in a deep breath trying to ready himself. This wasn't the time to second guess himself.

Louder now, Harry could tell that the voice was female. He started to run through the list of female Death Eaters he knew the names of and tried to match it, but it wasn't striking him as someone familiar. New recruit, perhaps?

The thought made him hesitate. Last November, Lucious Malfoy had been the lucky Death Eater to make his capture and, instead of _stupefying_ him and sending him directly to Voldermort, had kept him alert and started parading new recruits through, showing Harry off as if he were a prize pet. Harry had gotten loose, as he always seemed to eventually do, and had killed one of them before being re-captured. Malfoy had re-bound him and then coolly proceeded to inform him that he had done them a great service by ridding them of the one boy who'd seemed to be wavering in dedication to their cause. He'd congratulated Harry for proving to the rest of the recruits the correctness of their choice.

That had also been the capture where the Death Eaters learned not to leave Harry with his glasses. Gouging Malfoy's right eye out with a broken lens had not made up for the gnawing horror that the wizard's words had left, but it'd helped. Later it had occurred to him that the dark wizard had been lying to him, but he'd never known for sure and the idea that he was being played for a fool now ate at him.

The voice was almost at the door. Assuming it didn't just walk on by, he had only seconds to make a decision – continue to flatten himself beside the door and try to stab the woman in the neck with the mirror or…

With a grimace, Harry dropped the quill tip and transferred the mirror shard to his left hand. The voice paused at the door and Harry could now tell that it seemed to chiding someone. Exasperation and annoyance tinged the tone, but the words still didn't penetrate to make sense.

As the door swung open, Harry stepped forward and grasped the back of one of the wooden chairs. Hefting it in the air, he twisted and lobed it at the slim woman just stepping into the office. Her head had been turned away, still speaking to whomever her companion was, but the movement of the chair headed directly towards her caught her attention and with a jerk her wand moved and a shield formed between herself and the projectile.

Harry ducked down beside the desk, swearing under his breath. He had been hoping to incapacitate whoever she was and escape out the door, but it looked like he might be in for a fight instead. And if the speed with which she'd produced that shield charm was any indication, it would take more than a little luck for him to win.

"What do you think you're doing?" The outraged voice called from the doorway. "That was not an appropriate prank, neither very clever nor very subtle."

Again, the uncertainty flared up. Who was this woman and why was he here? Had Avery sent him here knowing he'd hurt her in order to escape? There was no fear in her voice at the unprovoked attack. No fear, and no real menace either. She spoke like someone who was simply annoyed.

"Um, professor…?" A more timid voice, much younger ventured from behind the woman and Harry stiffened. That voice was far too young to be a Death Eater. A child's voice. Then what the child had said caught up with him. A professor? The woman was a teacher? He supposed it was possible that the Death Eaters had stopped simply recruiting young adults and had started their own school program, but even as he tried to convince himself of that idea, doubts rose up to claw at him. He had jumped to the offensive without checking that his target was actually an enemy and he had the feeling he was going to regret it.

Glass crunched underfoot at the woman moved further into the room. "What are you doing?" There was more caution in the voice now, although the firm authority and annoyance was still in evidence.

He cleared his throat, "Um, Ma'am? I think I made a mistake."

"You most certainly did." The footsteps drew closer and Harry made no move to retreat further around the desk. He still gripped the large mirror shard and sometime in the last several seconds had managed to slice into his palm with it. A stinging sensation alerted him to the shallow wound, but he simply tightened his fist around it. He was unsure enough about whether the woman was part of Voldemort's crew to refrain from further attacking her for the moment, giving her the opportunity to make the next move, but he was not so foolish as to throw away every advantage. If it turned out he was wrong, she would find that just because he didn't have a wand didn't mean he was helpless.

The length of the woman's wand, glowing as if with a spell held just at the tip, was the first he saw of her advancing figure. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps he had overestimated her dueling capabilities since someone with more combat experience would have moved the desk out of the way or demanded he toss his wand to her. Anything but move into close striking range. Harry could easily reach out and snatched the wand from her hand - or at the very least immobilized her so she couldn't make the gestures most spells required. But he stayed where he was, crouched down, pressed against the desk. He had made the decision to wait and so that was what he would do until the situation clarified itself.

A slender, pale hand gripping the wand emerged into view followed by a slender arm wrapped in a green material which seemed to float around it. The arm paused and Harry reluctantly took his eyes off the wand to dart a glance upwards. The corner of the desk prevented him from seeing most of her body, but her head was now visible peering over at him. Her face matched her hand, slender and pale, with auburn hair fixed up in an untidy bun. If it hadn't been for the striking green eyes and the knowledge that she was long dead, he would have wondered if this woman was a grown version of Ginny Weasley. Perhaps she was perhaps part of an off-shoot of the Weasley family that he hadn't been introduced to. Maybe one of Arthur's cousins? Those green eyes nagged at him though. Where had he seen this face before? A newspaper photo? Although the features were blurry, she was close enough that her expression of confusion was nonetheless distinct.

"Who are you?" Her voice had dropped to nearly a whisper and the uncertainty had grown.

Harry squinted up at her. He knew it had been a while since he'd bathed so he was plenty filthy and certainly the last photo from the Daily prophet had been taken from a distance, but surely he was still recognizable? The lightning bolt scar on his forehead had grown to be just one of many curse scars he carried, even if it was still the most famous. The ragged edge of scar tissue that traveled from his hair line down his left cheek to end at his jaw line was rather hard to miss.

He cleared his throat again and wished, not for the first time, that he had his glasses again. You could see so much about a person if you could see their eyes, and not just through Legilimency.

What should he say? He hadn't been expecting her to not recognize him. He had an opening to lie, be anonymous, be a nobody… if it wasn't a trap.

"Professor?" The child's voice questioned from the doorway.

The woman took her eyes off him to turn to her student. It was only a flicker, but Harry still had to tell himself not to take advantage of it. It crossed his mind that he had spent far too long fighting if he had to restrain himself from attacking someone that wasn't presenting a threat. He wondered what Neville would say if he told him he was going to rectify that by taking a vacation to Australia. Or Antarctica. Or better yet, the moon. That sounded far enough away from everything.

"It's fine," The woman was telling the child, her eyes once again focused on the man at her feet, "Everything's fine. Would you go get the Headmaster for me? He's probably still in the Conference Room."

The small feet scampered down the hall, back the way they had come from.

"I don't believe you are one of our students, Mister…?" She trailed off, inviting him to supply a name.

He shook his head. "No. I -" He broke off, eyes darting between her face and her wand. It had never been pointing directly at him, currently it was held steady at a point off to his side, but even as he watched, it dipped to point at the floor.

This time when he looked back up he couldn't make out her expression. "Who are you?" Her voice gentled, soothing, and he wondered if he looked that bad. The bruises had faded, hadn't they? He was just dirty and scruffy looking, not someone who looked like he needed to go to St. Mungos, right? On the other hand, maybe she was just talking like someone who was facing a vicious dog – talk soft and maybe it won't bite.

But he still hadn't answered her question.

What were the chances he could get away with a lie for more than a few minutes? Whoever the kid had gone to get would certainly recognize him, but would that be a bad thing? If these people weren't on Voldemort's side, there was a good chance they'd help him. Or at least wouldn't hurt him. They'd probably kick him out the door and lock it behind him, but he couldn't really blame them if they did. People had a tendency to die if they helped the Boy-Who-Still-Lived, after all.

Rather than answer, he side-stepped the question, "I'm sorry. Where are we? Who are you?" He didn't relax, but he did make a show of scrunching his face into an expression of confusion and hoped she'd give him a few more minutes to sort out his options.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but answered, "We're at Hogwarts, young man, and I am Professor Potter. Now, I ask again, who are you?"

His mind stumbled over the 'Hogwarts' and he nearly missed the significance of the woman's name, but when he did register it, the rest of what she said immediately stopped holding any meaning. Forgetting any fear of being cursed, his eyes shot to her face.

Those eyes! It hit him that they looked so familiar because they stared out of every mirror he'd ever looked in. They smiled out of the precious photo album Hagrid had created for him. They belonged in the face of his mother – the face peering down at him right now.

With a roar of outrage, Harry lunged at her.

From his crouched position, he extended one hand, wrapped it around the wand, and yanked. Simultaneously, the other hand lashed out and embedded the shard of mirrored glass into her wrist.

With a cry of shock, her hand spasmed, releasing her wand into Harry's full control. Stumbling back a step, she also inadvertently freed herself from the glass as Harry had no intention of releasing hold of it. It tore free leaving a deep, ragged gash.

Harry hoped he'd ripped a tendon, at least. She wouldn't be able to hold a wand correctly with that hand until it had been tended to that way, and most people were not nearly as competent with their non-dominate hand in spell casting. He had no way of knowing if she was carrying a spare wand somewhere and at least this would slow her down some.

"_Incarcerous!_" A set of ropes shot from his stolen wand and wrapped around the woman. Already off balance from jerking away from him, the ropes around her legs caused her to topple over, although she did manage to twist so that her uninjured side took the brunt of her weight.

"Now," Harry snarled at her, "Who the hell are you?"

Her eyes, already dilated with shock, seemed to grow larger as she took in their change of position and her own wand leveled at her forehead.

"Wha-?"

"_Perficus Totalus!" _Harry had already begun twisting and ducking before the first syllable finished, but he still wasn't agile enough to avoid the spell aimed at his back and mid-spin felt every muscle stiffen and lock into place. Momentum carried his frozen form further around and sideways so he fell facing the door, his back to the woman he'd just wounded.

He silently cursed himself for seven kinds of fool to have left his back to the open door.

Immobilized eyes took in the hem of a purple satin robe woven with silver threads. Pointed slippers topped with a tuft of silver yarn peaked beneath the robe with every footstep as the man wearing them rushed forward and plucked the wand from Harry's hand. In the brief instant that he leaned forward, Harry could see the man's face. If he'd been able to move, Harry would have jerked back in shock. A long white beard and neatly tied white hair framed a wrinkled face Harry would never forget.

He wanted to howl his outrage and spit at the feet of the person who had stolen Dumbledore's face. It was even worse than seeing someone wear his mother's face. He had never met his mother and could easily imagine that the woman was some Death Eater wearing a mask, but this face was one he'd known, one he'd spent time talking to, one he still missed. He'd know those twinkling blue eyes anywhere. Albus Dumbledore had been the strongest wizard, most compassionate leader, and kindest man Harry had ever met and to see someone desecrate that memory was beyond infuriating.

However, not only did the spell he was bound with prevent him from physical movement, it also prevented his heart from racing or adrenaline from kicking in and blinding his reason, so although the rage rose in a torrential wave, it subsided just as rapidly, leaving only a cold fury that simmered down into bitter resentment.

"_Incarcerous."_ The calm voice of the headmaster wrapped Harry in a swirl of ropes, doubling the spells that chained him.

"Albus!" The woman behind him cried.

With the nimble movements Harry remembered the aged wizard having, 'Dumbledore' hoped over Harry's prone form and banished the ropes binding the woman. "Here you are my dear." Another spell and Harry knew the gash on the woman's arm was healed.

He silently let loose another string of vicious swearing. He should have just cast _petrificus totalus_ at that woman and ran while he'd had the chance. But, no, he'd been so _furious_ that some Death Eater was impersonating his mother that he'd had to try to stop and figure out who she really was first. Stupid, stupid, stupid mistake

He should probably have cast _Diffindo_ and made sure the woman never got up again. But, even as he thought it, he knew he wouldn't have actually done it. He still remembered Ron's horror when he realized the 'Death Eater' he'd killed had actually been a captive muggle polyjuiced to look like Crabbe. Harry wasn't sure if Ron had ever recovered from that mistake.

Claiming to be Lily Potter or not, this woman had not yet actually attacked him and her lack of vigilance, the ease with which he'd subdued her, still made him uneasy. Even now, bound and frozen, likely to be returned to Avery, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something important. There was just too much _wrong_ with this whole situation.

The two other wizards were now arguing behind him. 'Lily' was refusing to go to the hospital wing for her arm where 'Dumbledore' seemed to be urging her to go to ensure everything had healed properly.

However, neither of them had noticed the broken quills or the bits of shattered glass around the room. If they kept talking long enough, there was still a chance he could escape.

As long as he was conscious, there was _always_ a chance for escape.

The petrifying spell he was under would last anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour without renewal, depending on the power of the caster. The more time he waited before attacking these two, the greater the likelihood that the spell would wear off first. And he definitely preferred being able to move when he tried doing anything. Of course, even with the _petrificus totalus_ gone, he would still have to deal with the ropes. They would stay until banished; even though they were magically conjured, they were still just ordinary ropes, but Harry still had his piece of mirror tucked into the palm of his hand.

The woman was now describing what had happened and Harry listened with half an ear, most of his attention focused on running through different methods of snatching either of their wands before they managed to _stupefy_ him.

A small portion of his brain, however, was also mulling over how the Death Eaters had managed to pull off such an elaborate stunt why they'd bother. What did it gain them to have someone claim to be his mother? Did they think he'd fall at her feet and suddenly blab every Order secret? There was no way anyone could think he'd be that gullible. And Dumbledore? Did someone think he'd forget watching the man die? Half of Hogwarts had seen the greatest light wizard in over a century succumb to a curse that left his body a mutilated mess just outside the Great Hall.

How had they done it? Polyjuice, the best disguise available, was out of the question. It was impossible to use that potion to imitate a dead person. There had been a reason Barty Couch Jr. had left Moody alive in that trunk all those years ago, after all. A glamour of some sort? It would have to be more than that though to get the man playing Dumbledore to not just look like him but sound like him as well. And that didn't take into account the fact that the wand still pointed at him looked like the gnarled length Harry distinctly remembered the Headmaster carrying. It took much more elaborate spells to hide a wand than it did to hide someone's face. He didn't understand the reasoning behind that despite Hermoine's attempt at explaining it once. Something about the innate magical reasonance of a wizard's wand disrupting typical glamours. Or something like that. Whatever.

The point was that it just seemed like so much effort had been put into this farce and Harry couldn't figure out why!

It occurred to him to wonder if the latest round of Death Eater torture had somehow included scrambling his brains. This could just be a hallucination, or a bizarre concoction of a broken mind. He took a moment to scan back over his past. Everything up until the present seemed to be logical. The years in the cupboard under the stairs, the years at Hogwarts, the years of war, it all seemed in order. Of course, do insane people ever really think they're insane? Wouldn't the most illogical of things be perfectly reasonable to someone whose thinking has been twisted out of sync with reality? But that didn't explain why his current situation was then so far beyond sense. If he was truly insane, shouldn't he find this all perfectly reasonable?

The old man jarred him out of his thoughts by asking the woman, "Do you want me to contact your husband?"

'James Potter' was around here somewhere too?

"I'll just get my mirror and call him over. He can bring another Auror with him and take this crazy man away." Lily skirted past him and Harry could see that while she rubbed her wrist as if it ached, the actual wound had vanished.

She started rooting around in her desk. Once she'd stepped behind the desk Harry could no longer see her, but he could hear her opening drawers and moving parchment before it suddenly stopped, "He went through my desk!" The outrage in her voice was almost comical. Out of everything that had happened in the last several minutes, the fact that Harry had rifled through her desk seemed to offend this woman the most. "These papers are out of order and my quills and mirror are gone!" She moved away from the desk and quickly moved back into Harry's line of sight. Or rather the bottom of her robe and her shoes did. They were sensible shoes, black creased leather over a flat sole. In other circumstances Harry might have approved of them. As it was, they didn't rate as much attention as the hands that started patting his pockets. If he'd have been able to, he would have let her know exactly how much he didn't appreciate the frisking, but since that wasn't an option, he settled for mentally insulting her appearance, intelligence, and lineage. He would have quickly moved on to magical prowess if she hadn't been interrupted by the old man.

"My dear, perhaps a summoning charm?"

"Oh, yes, thank-you Albus." She stood up and for a moment Harry was afraid she might kick him, but she stepped back instead. "Accio Communication Mirror!"

Harry's frozen grip prevented the shard in his hand from jerking away, but the rest of the broken mirror was not so handicapped. Silver dust and flashing splinters of glass rushed up to be met with twin gasps of surprise and a glowing shield that rose a few seconds too late.

Harry wanted to grin. That had been far better than his wandless magic could have done. He couldn't see the damage, but having several hundred slivers of glass embedded in her hand had to hurt. And nothing quite matched the pleasure of making life difficult for people who were on Voldermort's side.

It didn't last long, of course, the old man quickly banished the glass and murmured a few healing spells and it was over. It only took, perhaps, two minutes, but that was two minutes closer to when the blasted spell holding him frozen wore off.

"I-I think I better just fire-call James." The woman sounded shaky and tired and Harry had had to firmly banish a twinge of guilt. It was _not_ his fault that this woman had chosen to put on his mother's face. Which again brought up the question of how she'd done it. Transfiguration on humans was a bit risky; painful and likely to result in some permanent disfiguration. Some sort of layered Glamour? Something new?

"Let us adjourn to my office and you can use the floo there. I wouldn't mind if your husband did his questioning there too as there are a few things I'd like to ask this young man as well."

"Would you like me to levitate him?" Her voice had lost its shaky quality, but it still sounded tired. Harry tried not to feel relieved that she'd regained her composure. It was a lot harder to do than he'd have guessed and it made him wonder where all the rage had disappeared to. He blamed it on the spell he was under.

"Actually, since it'll no doubt take James a bit of time to get the Veritaserum, why don't I just make sure our young guest here stays out of trouble."

Harry had just enough time to consider why that statement might concern him before his mind tumbled into darkness, never even hearing the stunning hex the headmaster sent his way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The darkness gave way to disorienting awareness after what seemed like an eyeblink, but was in all likelihood several hours later. He was seated in a soft armchair, bound to it with ropes, but no longer petrified, surrounded by an array of unfriendly faces. His left shin felt like he'd recently banged it on a piece of furniture or been kicked, a headache was blooming behind his eyes, and his right hand throbbed in time to his heartbeat. No one had apparently bothered to uncurl his clenched fist and the shard of glass was still there feeling like it had taken up residence inside his skin.

On the pretext of shifting to get more comfortable in the chair, Harry relaxed the muscles in his fingers, restoring the blood flow, and releasing a new wave of pain. At least he still had a weapon.

One of the watching faces moved forward as he shifted, extending a hand to Harry's chin as if to pry open his mouth. Harry automatically clenched his teeth, pressed his lips together and attempted to turn his face away. The reaching hand jerked his face back towards its owner who snarled down at him, "Who are you?"

Harry's eyes widened. Sirius Black, his godfather, the man who'd died in the Department of Mysteries almost a decade ago leaving no body behind, was glaring at him. If his jaw hadn't been clenched, it wouldn't surely have dropped in the first few seconds of recognition.

What the _hell_ was going on?

"Here, give him this first." Harry jerked his head around to stare at the second voice.

A man with shaggy dark hair and round glasses.

His father. Of course. Why not have everyone who was supposed to be dead pop up? At this point Harry half expected Ginny and Ron move into view and ask to go flying with him.

James Potter looked a bit older than any photo Harry had seen of him, his scowling

expression emphasizing the differences between this living man and the smiling, carefree photos Harry had memorized. He was taller than Harry had imagined and carried several extra pounds around the middle and there was a sprinkling of grey creeping into his hair around the ears, but despite those small changes, he was still distinctly James Potter.

Harry wrestled down the hysterical laughter that threatened to bubble up.

The wand shoved between his lips returned his attention to his godfather. Sirius muttered a phrase and Harry's jaw muscles immediately fell slack, dropping his mouth open. An eye dropper appeared and Harry felt three drops of cool liquid fall onto his exposed tongue. A gurgle of protest was ignored as Sirius stepped back with a final swish of his wand, returning control of his jaw to Harry. He immediately snapped it closed once again, but with a helpless, sinking feeling. The damage had been done. Already the warm, fuzzy sensation he always associated with being drugged with Veritaserum was creeping through his mind.

He _hated_ being drugged. He'd take a solid _Crucio_ over being drugged any day. Unfortunately, no one ever asked him.

"Why did you attack Lily?"

"James! Give it a minute to work." Sirius huffed at his friend, "And we're supposed to ask his name first."

Harry struggled against the compulsion to speak. He had only been dosed a few seconds; he shouldn't be forced to answer yet! But even that thought was becoming faded and distant. The knowledge that the potion could not be resisted trickled like skeletal fingers along his spine. Throwing off the _Imperious_ curse had never helped him much with the truth serum. Which was why he was never the secret keeper to the Order's latest bolt hole.

"Why did you attack Lily?"

Harry opened his mouth before his brain had even fully processed the question. "Because I figured she was a Death Eater."

There was a pause and Harry's eyes drifted to the ceiling. Were there cobwebs up there? Too bad his eyesight was too poor to see something like that. The vaulted ceiling seemed like the kind of place spiders would hang out.

"What the hell is a Death Eater?" This question was voiced by Sirius and again Harry's mouth engaged before his mind did and an answer tumbled out.

"A follower of Voldermort."

A longer pause this time and somewhere in the back of Harry's mind alarm bells were screaming for attention. These weren't the right question for the interrogation. That same distant consciousness was ordering his eyes to stop staring at the ceiling and start paying attention to the facial expressions of the people around him. He was missing their reactions! He would look at them in just a minute, of course, but just now the ceiling was actually fairly interesting…

"Voldermort? Sounds like a weird muggle rock band or something." Sirius was speaking again, sounding more confused than anything.

"Sounds like German or Russian word. Not English, certainly. Perhaps he's referring to a cult?" Ah, Harry was pleased to hear that the Headmaster was also around. Sounded like he was behind Harry. He wondered if he tilted his head back far enough if he could see him or if the chair would get in the way. He'd missed the old man. Why hadn't he seen him in so long? Oh, yeah - because he was dead.

"What is Voldermort?"

What an interesting question. What was Voldermort, really? Was he still considered human? "He used to be human, but I'm not sure he counts anymore. Probably he's still mostly human. And a little bit dead too." If several pieces of a soul were destroyed, then that person would be slightly dead, right? "Might be part snake. Or part inferius? I don't really know."

Lily burst out, "Are you insane?"

"Nope!" Harry cheerfully replied, but Lily talked right over him.

"How can someone be 'a little bit dead' or 'part inferius'? There's no such thing!"

He was pretty sure these were rhetorical questions, but wasn't able to convince his lips of that and they answered anyway, "He used to be human, but his soul was broken in pieces and in the end none of them were left in his body, which died, but then someone gave him a new body and a piece of his soul animates it, but I'm not sure if he's really alive now or not."

Sometime during this speech his eyes had drifted down to his captors and so he was able to see that the three faces before his were gaping at him as if he were crazy. He was beginning to wonder if they weren't correct about his sanity. Nothing had made sense since that spell Avery had hit him with and the idea that he'd been driven clear out of his mind was starting to look more and more likely. It would explain so much. But he still didn't quite believe that, as evidenced by his clear denial of insanity a moment ago.

Dumbledore moved out from behind Harry and peered at him over his spectacles. "That sounds like very dark magic, my boy. Are you part of that?"

"NO!" Even being drugged on a potion that filled the world with a glowing haze of happy complacency, that idea was rejected with vehemence. He would _never_ follow that murderous madman. Never.

Apparently his adamant refusal was convincing as the Headmaster straightened back up, "Although I believe this 'Voldermort' person deserves some follow-up, I think we are getting a bit off topic. Now, why did you believe Lily Potter was a, I believe the term was 'Death Eater'?"

Wasn't the answer obvious? "She can't be Lily Potter. Lily Potter is dead."

_That_ garnered a reaction. James wand was pointing between his eyes before he could blink, "Was that a threat?"

"No," He absently responded. The wand hovering over his nose was a dark wood, polished to a shine. It had never occurred to him to ask anyone what his father's wand was made of before. What kind of wood was that dark? It kind of reminded him of coffee before the cream was added.

"James, calm down. We've only got fifteen minutes before the Veritaserum wears off." Lily placed her hand on James' arm and it immediately relaxed. "I don't know why he'd say something like that, but he's obviously mistaken."

"Yes," Dumbledore was stroking his beard and watching Harry with thoughtful eyes, "Yes, everything he has said so far is simply raising more questions. Perhaps we ought to start over and try to approach this from another angle."

Both James and Sirius nodded, although James was a bit slower in agreeing.

"What is your name?"

"Harry James Potter."

The response to that was even more dramatic than before. Sirius and both Potters exclaimed in shocked disbelief, talking over themselves in their effort to express themselves.

"That's impossible!"

"Harry doesn't look anything like that! I mean, I guess there's some resemblance, but-"

"I just saw Harry a couple days ago and everything was fine-"

"Harry wouldn't attack his own mother!"

"-where are his glasses? He wouldn't wander around without-"

"-Harry wouldn't do something like this."

"-he didn't even appear to know me until I said my name."

Dumbledore raised his wand and a small fountain of sparks crackled into existence, drowning out the commotion. As the others fell silent, he lowered his wand, "I believe we should clarify the situation a bit before we get carried away." He turned back to Harry whose focus was now on the spot where the colorful sparks has appeared, "Your name is Harry James Potter, correct?"

He nodded.

"Who are your parents?"

"James Potter and Lily Potter, formerly Evans."

Sirius awed voice interrupted the Headmaster's next question, "This has got to be the most elaborate prank you've ever pulled mini-prongs."

Another shocked pause fell before Lily bit out, "Harry Potter! If this is a prank, you are going to be grounded for the rest of your life! I don't care if you are an adult, that glass hurt! And getting your father called out like this? That's not funny at all."

"Siruis," James quiet voice interrupted her tirade, "Did you give him water instead of Veritaserum?"

All eyes, including Harry's swung toward the dog animagus, who just blinked back at them, "Wha-? Of course not! I didn't have anything to do with this!" He turned admiring eyes back to Harry, "But I wish I had been. This is the most elaborate stunt I think I've ever seen pulled. Did you put a glamour on to create those scars or did you go the muggle way and use make-up?"

Harry frowned. That had been a question, but neither answer was truthful. So he did not bother to reply.

James continued, "You can't fight that potion, Sirius, you know that. Everything…Harry," The hesitation before his name said more than any words could of his doubts on that point, "has said, he must genuinely think is true." Siruis seemed to deflate at this point, "He attacked his mother because he thought she was part of whatever that Death Eater group is, not because he wanted to prank her."

"But James," Lily tapped her husband's arm, her gazed fixed on Harry, "Look at him. I can see our boy there, but..." She leaned over and Harry flinched as she ran her thumb over the raised scar tissue crossing his cheekbone. "Those scars aren't cosmetic, and it's not a glamour either."

She pointed her wand directly at his face and before Harry had time to process the threat, she'd whispered a quiet _finite_ spell.

Harry blinked as the gentle magic washed over his face, but nothing else happened. He wasn't wearing a glamour, or any other spells that he knew of, so the magic had nothing to remove. Lily looked disappointed.

James bent over to peer at his face and Harry felt an uncomfortable urge to squirm, despite the potion. He decided that if James stuck his hand out to touch him, Harry would try to bite a finger off.

"Those can't be real though. We just saw him a few days ago and these are far older than that." Here he paused but no one contradicted him. "Obviously there's something else going on here."

"I agree." Dumbledore clasped his hands behind as he too moved to peer at the scars on Harry's face. Then straightening up, he rocked up on to the balls of his feet, bouncing up and down in thought. Harry felt again that tug of familiarity. The old wizard had always been spry – how could anyone mimic the natural mannerisms of his old mentor so accurately? Harry also realized he had almost come down off the truth serum. The unnatural languor was rapidly disappearing as was the fog over his mind and with the renewed clarity came the return of his unease.

Whatever was happening, it wasn't going away and he was more and more convinced that he wasn't surrounded by actors in glamours. Which left…what? Some sort of spell that trapped him in a mental fantasy?

The headmaster apparently had similar thoughts

"Do you recall always being called 'Harry'?"

"Yes." The drug had faded enough that he felt he could elaborate, as long as he stuck to the truth, but he didn't want to draw attention to the fact that he was becoming more lucid so stayed quiet.

"Excellent. Alright, did you enter Hogwarts with the intention of attacking Professor Potter?" Harry replied in the negative and Dumbledore continued, "Did you come with the intention of harming, in any way, any of the residents of Hogwarts?" Harry simply shook his head this time. "Did you come of your own volition or did someone force or ask you to come?"

"I was forced."

The other adults shifted and a murmur of dismay arose from them.

"Do you remember how you got here?"

Harry frowned. The spell Avery cast… did he know for sure if it had transported him somewhere? If this was just a mental delusion, then that was certainly the cause, but if he'd been confounded or something and then later transported somewhere…

Apparently he took too long to answer because Sirius commented, "The Veritaserum's probably worn off. Should we dose him again?"

Harry grimaced. He'd been so focused on the weird interrogation that he'd stopped trying to escape. Quickly, before they drugged him again, he slipped the shard of mirror over towards the rope looping over his wrist connecting it to the armrest and started to saw at the bindings. He didn't have much hope of getting free before he was given another potion, but it was something.

"I don't think we should give him another dose." Lily told Sirius, "This is _Harry_. It's not like he'll lie to us."

"I disagree," James argued, "I'm not convinced it really is Harry. He just thinks he is."

Sirius nodded, "Yeah, and one more time won't hurt him."

Harry could testify to that. It would take almost two whole bottles of the stuff before he'd start getting sick to the stomach. Although he'd prefer that fact to remain unverified for a bit longer.

However, despite the bizarre, strangely pain-free and almost entertaining 'interrogation', he was ready to be done. Whatever Avery's curse had done, it certainly lived up to the 'surprise', but whether Harry was hallucinating this entire sequence of events, whether this was some elaborate hoax or whether he had somehow been genuinely transported to some time and place where his family was still alive, he had no intention of sitting still and letting them dose him again.

"Hey," He called to the still arguing adults, "Why don't we try having a reasonable discussion about this instead of pouring a potion down my throat. Maybe we can get to the bottom of this that way."

James and Sirius stared at him as if he'd suggested they should all do a waltz on the ceiling. Which was fine. He hadn't really expected them to agree, just wanted to buy a bit more time to work on his bindings before they drugged him again.

Surprisingly however, Lily nodded, "I agree. James, just ask without that." She motioned with her head to the tiny potion vial Sirius held.

Looking like he wanted to disagree, James nonetheless nodded to Sirius who stepped back a pace. Taking a deep breath, James turned to Harry and asked, "Alright, if you're really Harry, tell me something only you'd know."

"Like what?" Harry asked, stalling. What could he say to answer something like that? He didn't know these people – whether they were real or not. And the little he did know wouldn't likely be good enough. James played as Chaser at Quidditch in Hogwarts; Sirius was a dog animgus and spent twelve years in Azkaban and died at the Ministry of Magic; Lily had green eyes and a sister that hated magic.

"Where do I keep the shot glasses Sirius gives me every New Years?"

Now it was Harry's turn to stare. He had no clue how to answer that. Sirus gave James shot glasses? How long had that tradition been going on? Where would James keep them? The study? The kitchen? A special cabinet or trunk? Uncle Vernon had kept a shot glass they'd bought in Germany one year on a shelf in the entry hall. It was evidence of their 'cultured' image, even though Harry had always considered it a bit tacky looking.

"Look, James, this kid doesn't have a clue!" Sirius pointed out. "It's not Harry."

"But we already know his memory has been modified!" Lily countered, "Don't ask what he might not remember, ask what he _does_ remember."

"Fine." James rubbed his chin and Harry heard the scratch of stubble against his palm and fleetingly wished he had good enough eyesight to see that level of detail.

"What do you remember of us?"

Thinking rapidly, Harry calculated that the truth would do no harm. And might actually help, considering the turmoil some of his previous answers had brought. He was nearly halfway through the first loop of rope and no one had so much as glanced at his hands yet.

"James and Lily both died when I was one years old and-"

Unsurprisingly, this caused more shocked and disbelieving cries.

Dumbledore, however, simply watched him with intent eyes. "Harry," His quiet voice overriding the others, "would you be willing to submit to a Legimancy spell?"

"No." He promptly answered. And unless the old man had Voldermort's level of power _and_ a direct link to his mind like the scar on his forehead, his Occulmancy shields would be more than adequate to repel an attack.

However, the headmaster didn't press the issue. Instead he asked, "Would you give us a Pensive memory?"

Harry blinked, fingers actually pausing their work. A pensive memory? That needed a wand. A person couldn't draw someone else's memories out, it had to be the person whose memories were being collected that extracted them. Would they trust him a wand? Suspicious, Harry nodded.

Dumbledore nodded in satisfaction. "We believe your mind has been tampered with, my boy." He told Harry, as if he hadn't been listening to everything that had said earlier, "Either you are, in fact, Harry Potter and someone has done something to make you forget growing up with your parents, or you are someone else who's been made to think you are Harry Potter when you are not. Either way, a Pensive memory will show if and possibly how your mind has been tampered with, and perhaps give us a clue as to what exactly should be done."

Although he'd considered that everything around him was a figment of his imagination, he hadn't seriously given any thought to the idea that his own memories might be false instead. They felt too clear, too vivid, too numerous. Could someone actually install a lifetime worth of memories, erasing a person's true past?

The uneasy feeling that had been gnawing at him ever since he'd arrived blossomed into full grown doubt. His eyes shot to Lily and James, both looking tense and uneasy. Then to Sirius' frowning face. What if what they were saying was true and it was _him_ that was the problem? Could someone really have planted false memories – he remembered Sirius' death, Dumbledore's death, and yet they seemed very much alive right now…

Whatever was going on, he needed to be sure of his own mind. He needed that more than he needed to escape. Dumbledore wasn't lying about a Pensive's ability to show memory modification charms. If you entered a memory that'd been tampered with, it would appear fuzzy, with blurred backgrounds, and indistinct details.

"I will be entering the Pensive with you." Harry warned the Headmaster, unwilling to leave the verdict of what had happened to him up to someone else.

The man simply nodded as if he'd expected Harry to demand such a thing. He turned to a gilded cupboard behind his desk and removed a familiar looking caldron. It was the same one the Headmaster had used to show him Voldermort's childhood during Harry's sixth year, just months before his death.

The sight of it simply confirmed Harry's decision. He _knew_ that pensive had been destroyed along with the rest of Dumbledore's office. His past and his present were not adding up and he needed answers.

A/N: Well, first of all, this chapter came about because, while I love the whole dimension travel / time travel cliché (and this story will no doubt be full of those clichés), most of them gloss over the transition. I mean, everyone accepts it so easily, so I thought I'd go into a bit more depth here. I know that if I suddenly found myself in a situation like that, even with magic at my disposal, I don't think 'Dimension Travel!' would be my first thought when there were simpler explanations available. So…yeah. And, since the idea of Harry going to an alternate dimension like this has been done so many times, don't expect this story to be brilliantly original. Hopefully it'll be different enough to be fun, but that's about all I'm going for. I'm writing what I'd like to read, after all.

Please be aware that this story has a much lower priority than my other one 'Dust the Scales', so updates will be very, very slow. However, I do plan to eventually finish it. It may not happen until you, my dear reader, have grandkids and have lost all interest in seeing what happens next, but it will happen.

I thank you very, very much for reading and for anyone who takes the time to review. Those notes of encouragement are treasured!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**A/N: **No, this isn't abandoned! Shocking!

Anyway, a warning to anyone reading this that there is gore and violence mentioned!

While James, Sirius and Professor Dumbledore each trained a steady wand on him, Harry gently picked up the thin length of rosewood Lily had left on the table for him. Ignoring the three men, he spent a moment examining the wand. It was scuffed near the tip, worn smooth near the handle, and felt friendly in his hand.

There had been some debate on which wand to give him – no one wanted to risk losing their own, for any reason, but ultimately they'd decided that each of the men had more experience disarming and containing another wizard than Lily had so, in the end, she'd reluctantly placed it on the table near the pensive and retreated behind her husband. James had issued a series of threats detailing exactly what curses he'd use if Harry even thought about attacking them (which Harry thought was rather silly of him since that just forearmed him with what kinds of counter-measures he'd need to take) before Sirius vanished the ropes binding him to the chair.

He'd remained sitting, wiggling his toes to get the blood flow restored rather than leaping to his feet, and that seemed to reassure everyone that he wasn't going to rabidly lunge for anyone's throat.

Once the feeling returned to his feet, he slowly stood and with exaggerated care moved over to the table. Before picking up the wand, he turned to Dumbledore and asked, "Can I conjure up a pair of glasses first?"

Without hesitation, the Headmaster replied, "Certainly, my boy."

With a sense of smug relief, Harry finally swished the wand and cast his first spell.

Although he hadn't thought it possible, the glasses which appeared were uglier than his usual mangled attempts. The frames looked like someone had taken a pair of normal glasses and stretched and melted the ear pieces into lumpy globs then sort of pounded them into a workable shape, ignoring the bubbles and craters that had formed. The lenses were neither symmetrical nor even remotely circular, with one side noticeably larger than the other.

All in all, it was a spectacularly pathetic piece of magic, and Harry grimaced in distaste. That particular spell never seemed to work well for him, but considering how often he needed to replace his glasses, he'd learned to live with the uniquely grotesque eyeglasses he produced. At least the prescription usually turned out well.

With a sigh, he slipped them on and was finally able to see the edges of the room clearly. Since he felt he had the time, he looked around, noting that the room, while definitely still Dumbledore's, was quite a bit different than how he remembered it last. The delicate twirling, spinning devices he's smashed after Sirius' death were all clustered along a single shelf behind the chair he'd been confined to. The sword of Gryffindor was missing, the rug on the floor was a deep purple rather than the burgundy he remembered, and the bookcases beside the door seemed to be gone as well. Fawkes' perch was present, although empty, and he wished for a brief moment that the phoenix was there – a creature such as Fawkes would be harder to replicate than a human after all.

He would have liked to spend a few more moments cataloguing the room, but it seemed his time was up, "Quit stalling and put the bloody memory in." James snapped.

Harry didn't bother looking at him, but did step over to the pensive. He didn't have to think too hard to know exactly which memory to extract. Pressing the borrowed wand to his temple, he concentrated and a thick silver strand flowed out to twist and shiver in the air. With a flick of the wrist, he sent the memory into the pensive and lowered the wand to his side, turning to face the Headmaster with a raised eyebrow.

"Leave the wand on the table." James barked, his own wand having never wavered from its point on Harry's chest.

Reluctantly, Harry placed the friendly wand onto the table next the pensive and moved back a step without being ordered to do so.

Dumbledore stepped up beside him, pressed his flowing beard to his chest to prevent it from getting in the way, and peered into the pensive, vanishing instantly. Harry gave the three other people a final, wary look and also leaned over to peer into the memory.

With a lurching sense of disorientation, he tumbled into chaos.

0101010

The memory snapped into focus surrounding Harry. Screams no less chilling for being remembered rent the air, black cloaked figures dancing around volleys of stunners and retaliating with deadly shots of green light. The very atmosphere was filled with madness and desperation.

Harry glanced around, letting shadows from the past run right through him, although he automatically dodged the Avada Kedavra curses. That would not be a good habit to lose, after all. Dumbledore was no where in sight. Neither was the memory of the old man, although Harry knew right where to look for that. He would have thought that the pensive would have dumped him nearer to his past self rather than across the lawn, but that was magic for you – completely counter-intuitive.

Harry frowned around himself once more, hoping to catch sight of the Headmaster. If Dumbledore didn't get in the right position, he'd miss the whole point of Harry picking this battle, but all around him he only saw black-clad forms.

Flinching as one Death Eater shot a nasty flesh-eating curse through Harry's chest striking a fellow Death Eater, Harry shot a startled look behind him and saw the distinctive willowy form of Severus Snape ducking away. He blinked in surprise, not having realized that his old potion professor had been at this fight. Although, now that he thought about it, it did make sense. This was Voldemort's first major victory, a battle he'd likely gambled the entirety of his followers on with reverberating effects.

This was the Loss of Hogwarts.

Harry shook his head. It didn't matter that Snape had been here at this point, even if it was nice to have some final evidence that he'd fought for their side before his death.

The ground beneath his feet did not squish as he remembered it, his footsteps leaving no imprint in the mud of a memory, but Harry paid that no attention, focusing instead on the main reason he'd entered this memory in the first place. First he looked up, since all the other directions seemed to be filled with swarms of people. The sky looked low and overcast, threatening rain, as he remembered. He cast his eyes from one side to the other, but saw none of the silvery flashes on the edges that a constructed memory would bring, nor any black gaping holes from a modified memory. Next Harry waded through the crowds up to the gates of Hogwarts, passing out of the Death Eaters' ranks, through the front lines of the castle defenders where the grounds were filling up with the dead and dying and up to the ancient stone walls. He forcibly kept his gaze steady on the grey stone, turning deaf ears to the frantic cries of lost friends.

There were recent scorch marks along the rock, one of which still glowed as if embedded with tiny embers. The untouched areas looked damp and muddy with a few places growing a green slime. Chips and cracks ran along the face of the wall, although none looked like they would damage its structure unduly.

Harry felt his shoulders relax in relief. This level of detail was impossible to manufacture in a false memory or an illusion of this size. The memory was most definitely real.

Once again confident of his mental health, Harry turned back to the crowds of fighters battling around him. Now that he was sure of himself, he needed to find out who this new Dumbledore was and what he wanted with Harry.

Where was that frustrating, twinkly-eyed old man anyway? Harry couldn't exactly leave the memory without him - his parents and Sirius (or whoever they were) would probably think he'd murdered the old man or something if he came out alone.

As if summoned by his irritation, the Headmaster materialized at his side, "Harry," The man's voice was troubled, "When did this take place? Who are these people attacking the children?"

Willing to play along since he couldn't think of anything better to do, Harry answered, "This was about, um, eleven years ago?" He tilted his head and counted, silently for a moment, "Yes, eleven years ago." He nodded for emphasis. "Those are the Death Eaters. Voldemort's followers, remember?"

"Yes, yes." Came the distracted reply and the frowning Headmaster surveyed the battle. He seemed to flinch as one of the second year Slytherins defending Hogwarts dropped with an agonized scream, his skin boiling off and Harry felt a bubble of sympathy. It had been hard enough to live through the battle, but if this person who claimed to be Dumbledore actually believed he was who he said he was – and all evidence was pointing that way – then he probably was feeling the same sense of responsibility for the students that the real Dumbledore would have. Harry knew he'd have a hard time watching a memory of something like this if he hadn't known it had already happened. Now the scene that had played out so often in his nightmares was an empty horror, still awful, but the sharp pain had turned into a hollow ache, and even reliving it in vivid detail here in a pensive didn't cause the heart-wrenching pain it once would have.

Watching the very real agony crossing Dumbledore's familiar face, Harry was slowly coming to the reluctant conviction that this man genuinely believed he was who he appeared to be. Everything so far was too well done, too believable, to be anything else. Apparently Voldemort's next game for Harry was to drop him in a place filled with people who'd been somehow changed, body and mind, to honestly believe they were who they claimed to be. They were all probably perfectly innocent bystanders caught up in one of the Dark wizard's twisted games, with their memories modified and appearances changed. If Harry hadn't despised the evil man so thoroughly, he'd be impressed at his creativity. Although, actually it had probably been thought up by some minion who would never get credit for it. It was still a brilliant scheme.

He had no idea how to get out of this weird situation and back to where he was needed, but at least he felt he was getting a handle on the rules. And if he was lucky, these people will have been infused with enough of the personalities of the people they were imitating to help him out, once they realized he was telling the truth. Harry always did have an overabundance of luck, so there was a good possibility he'd be able to turn this little game around on Voldemort.

A mist was rolling in, the Dementors on their way. Still watching the lines deepen on Albus' face, Harry knew it was getting near the time for which Harry had picked this memory for. "Come on." Harry reached out and grasped a handful of the man's sleeve and tugged. Dumbledore followed willingly, walking with heavier footsteps than the spry wizard usually did, but his eyes continued to track the battle, noting each injured student, each fallen body.

"Where are the aurors?" Dumbledore asked in a voice so low as to be nearly unheard in the tumult around them.

Not sure if the question had been rhetorical or not, Harry answered anyway, "They don't show. The minister was in Voldemort's pocket and the head of the department bribed."

Dumbledore's eyes grew sadder and he finally looked at Harry, still leading him through the carnage to the castle steps, "This memory may have happened to you, but it did not happen here."

Harry just shook his head and kept walking, "It happened. This memory isn't fake, I looked and the signs aren't there." They passed the memory-Harry, dueling with two Death Eaters and slowly being pushed backwards, but Harry didn't pause, "I think _you've_ had your memories changed. You aren't Dumbledore and this will prove it." With that he stopped and flung and arm out to point at the doors into the castle.

They were scorched, the one on the left leaning at an unnatural angle as the hinges had been melted and stretched. Between the doors stood a figure in shimmering robes, spells shooting from his wand at a blinding pace. Albus Dumbledore, as Harry remembered him, casting shield spells, curses, and dizzingly complex charms in a display of brilliant magical power – all of which would be doomed to failure. Harry gazed over at his former mentor as he battled to save his students and sighed. He'd seen this too often in his nightmares to want to watch it now. So he watched the other Dumbledore as he watched 'himself' fight.

The skin around his eyes was tight and he clenched his wand at his side in a grip that twitched every now and then as if he were about to mimic the moves of his double or perhaps was restraining himself from joining in the fight. The old man's eyes couldn't seem to stay focused in one place, although they darted back to the Dumbledore on the steps more frequently than anywhere else.

The mist was getting thicker, the screams warning of the incoming dementors beginning. A silver rabbit patronus shot through the castle walls, sent out from Luna lying within with a broken ankle and a curse that temporarily blinded her. Several other injured students whom Dumbledore had managed to whisk within the relative safety of the castle also sent out their patronus spells, bringing some relief to the people outside still fighting the Death Eaters.

"Why is everyone outside? Why is this happening here?"

The question was soft, almost agonized, but again Harry answered, "It's the first quidditch match of the season. Everyone was at the pitch when the wards fell. Some of the professors tried to herd everyone into the castle, but this was as far as they got." If they'd entered the memory a bit sooner, they could have seen the mob of children trample several of their own in their desperation to flee. The fallen wards had included the appraration wards, but very few of the children had been taught that skill and even fewer had thought to use it. The adults had begun to pick up kids and apparate them in ones and twos to safety, but there were too many children and too much panic. Most of students had fled on foot and had only turned back to try to fight when they'd realized they were being slaughtered as they ran. They'd been faced with the choice of taking a curse in the back or standing their ground and hoping to survive long enough for one of the teachers to get to them. Harry'd never been quite sure what the point of killing all the children had been other than simply to create fear, anger and chaos across the country. They'd learned afterwards that the Death Eater children had left the match early to avoid the attack.

Harry's memory-self stumbled up beside the castle doors. Blood splatter glistened in his hair and he limped from a poorly cast bone splitter which had only fractured his left tibia bone.

No sooner had Harry reached the wall than a powerful voice called out, "Harry Potter!"

Harry and Dumbledore (both the real and memory versions) as well as a good portion of the rest of the crowd swiveled to face the insane Dark Lord as he emerged from the midst of his followers. His gleeful, manic smile only heightened the horror of his presence.

"Riddle." Dumbledore's calm voice, no less powerful than Voldermort's, turned the dark wizard's attention from the still fighting teen to himself.

"Riddle?" Harry glanced over at the man watching the memory with him. His face was intent, focused on Voldemort as the dark wizard began to declare that his reign was about to unfold. Old snake-face definitely loved the sound of his own voice and would declare his brilliance for several long minutes. Harry's former headmaster had spent those minutes both buying time for McGonagall and Professor Flitwick to apparate more of the children off the field and into the castle and have time to weave a costly spell into the very fabric of Hogwarts. Just the tip of his wand moved now as he prepared the school for its final part in this confrontation.

"Tom Riddle," Harry answered easily, "Voldemort."

"_That's_ Tommy Riddle?" Dumbledore raked his eyes over the madman, taking in the pasty skin; flattened, nose-less face; bald skull and gleaming red eyes.

One of Harry's eyebrows rose, "Tommy? You used to call him 'Tommy'?" Harry could always get a furious rant out of Voldemort whenever he dared to call him by his given name, but it hadn't occurred to him to use 'Tommy' before. He'd have to remember it for their next meeting. The explosion was guaranteed to be spectacular.

Dumbledore, still looking disturbed absently replied, "That's what he's asked everyone to call him."

Harry's second eyebrow joined the first.

Well, that was…different.

Unfortunately this wasn't the time to ask about that. While the battle continued to rage about them, Voldemort, memory-Harry and memory-Dumbledore almost seemed to be in a pocket of calm for a moment. That moment was shattered as one of the Death Eaters took advantage of the distraction to fire a curse at Harry. He caught it in the stomach, blasting him back behind the headmaster into the entrance hall and making him retch bloody chunks all over his own feet. The Death Eater, sensing victory, moved closer, but he only made it a few steps before tumbling to the ground unconscious from the stunner Harry managed to toss out between heaves.

Voldemort meanwhile had cast the first volley against Dumbledore, a nasty hex meant to turn the oxygen in a person's blood into iron. Dumbledore's counter spell dissipated it before it could reach him and the deadly duel for Hogwarts had begun.

The battle was intense, several blocked spells producing shockwaves that caused the people around them to stumble. But it was also incredibly short. Voldemort didn't exactly play fair and at one point snatched up a fifth year Ravenclaw, Jasmine Merritaff, who'd been forced back into the Voldemort's reach. The girl was immobilized and used as a human shield, limiting the spells Dumbledore could safely use.

From a pragmatic perspective, Harry now could look back and acknowledge that Dumbledore should have ignored the hostage and continue to fight with deadly precision – perhaps then the outcome of the battle would have been different. But Harry knew that if he'd been in Albus' position he would no more have been able to sacrifice a child than the Headmaster had been able to do, so Harry was able to forgive his old mentor for not fighting quite as well as perhaps he should have.

It was memory-Harry's presence that tipped the scales. Still puking up blood and curled up in a fetal ball of pain, Harry was helpless to dodge when Voldemort's breath-stealing spell hurled his direction. In fact, he hadn't even noticed it coming his way.

From a perspective of hindsight, Harry was able to see the Dumbledore had anticipated this. That he'd planned for it, even. But in the heat of the moment, it looked like the old man had lost his head. Instead of sending a chunk of masonry flying out to block the spell, or raising a shield around Harry, Dumbledore growled out something guttural and low and hurled himself directly into the path of the pale yellow light.

The effect was instant and as dramatic as any final sacrifice could ask for. Dumbledore's entire body seemed to contract as his lungs were violently crushed. His body crashed to the ground, head hitting the stone with an ugly crack and around him Hogwarts shuttered. There was an instant of stillness where even Voldemort looked shocked, and then the broken gates of Hogwarts slammed themselves shut, sealing everyone who was inside behind such ancient wards that it had taken Voldemort nearly a full two years of steady spellwork and countless blood rituals to topple.

The dozens of children still outside the castle, along with McGonnagal and Vector, never stood a chance and were slaughtered within minutes of that final sacrifice, but all those who had made it to the castle were saved.

And, as a final bonus, Harry Potter, now with the second person to ritually sacrifice their life for his sake, was granted another layer of protection from the wizard who so desperately wanted to kill him.

Still watching the 'real' Dumbledore as the castle doors slammed shut and the memory around them started to fade, Harry could see the shock and sorrow and horror pass in waves over that wrinkled face and settle in something like acceptance and something like determination. But before Harry could have a chance to ask about it, they were jerking away from the memory.

0101010

They tumbled out of the memory, Harry stumbling a bit before catching himself with the edge of the table. Glancing around, he saw that not much had changed. James and Sirius still had their wands out and pointed at him, although Lily had retrieved hers while they were in the pensive and now joined them in leveling it at him.

"Well?" James demanded, impatient.

Beside him, Dumbledore let out a deep sigh. "His memories appear to be genuine."

His statement caused a new round of blinking and, as before when she was surprised and confused, Lily's wand dropped to point at the floor. "What do you mean?" She asked.

"He showed me proof that his memories are real and not consistent with what we know to have happened." Harry glanced at him and noticed that the old man seemed to look drained and tired, his face tight and unhappy.

"That doesn't make any sense." Sirius muttered.

"Nonetheless, it is true." He turned to Harry, eyes searching. "He saw a great battle and he saw me fall."

"Impossible." James flatly stated.

"Perhaps," Dumbledore agreed, "But it was still true. So we are left with a dilemma."

Harry snorted, "It's not a dilemma, you've all been cursed. You aren't really who you think you are."

His statement was met with a wall of disbelief. "We haven't been cursed," James growled.

Dumbledore looked thoughtful, one hand coming up to stroke his beard, "He does have a point."

"What?!" Sirius' jaw actually dropped and Lily gasped, "You can't be serious!"

Dumbledore inclined his head, "Mr. Potter here was gracious enough to lend a memory to prove his past is real. I believe it would only be sensible to return the courtesy."

Harry's eyebrows shot up, but he nodded. Even better than seeing Harry's memories of Dumbledore's death would be proof that Dumbledore's own mind had been tampered with. If the Headmaster saw that his own memories were false, it would be indisputable that what Harry had been telling them was true and that they were simply being used as puppets by Voldemort.

Dumbledore ignored Potter and Sirius' muttered grumblings and extended his wand to Harry, "Please retrieve your memory."

Somewhat surprised by the man's willingness to hand over his wand, Harry accepted it, but hesitated at actually clearing his memory from the stone bowl. "Do you think they," He jerked his head to indicate the others, "should see it first?"

Dumbledore's smile was sad, "If they still remain unconvinced about the facts based solely on my word and need to see for themselves, then I think, out of a lifetime of memories, you might be able to find something a bit less…jarring for them."

Harry looked over at the three adults to find each of them looking a bit flushed and shamefaced, as if Dumbledore's simple admonishment had been a much harsher rebuke. None of them said anything, so Harry retrieved his memory and reluctantly handed back the wand.

The headmaster tapped the tip of his chin with the wand for a moment, gazing down at the empty pensive, "Nothing too recent will do, but not too distant either." He hummed a moment in thought, then slowly brought the wand to his temple and extracted a single slivery thread. It twisted and jerked on the end of his wand, a living thing, before vanishing into the pensive. With a sweeping gesture, he waved Harry into the memory first.

**A/N**: Thanks so much for reading! This chapter is focused on the past and I'll say now that Harry's old world isn't going to come into play in this new one (In other words, Harry will neither ever get back nor will anyone from there ever make it to this new universe). Instead, Harry gets to face all new troubles in a whole new universe! But I thought this would be a good way to get a good feel for where Harry came from :-)

I will tell you now that I don't hold stories hostage for reviews, but I have found that they are truly incredibly motivating towards getting a new chapter out (I find that I'm suddenly interested in writing more when someone tells me that they are interested in finding out what happened ). Since I'm more focused on 'Dust the Scales', the next chapter of this will probably be a long time in coming, but there will be more eventually.


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